Climate Change Puts Iceberg Photos en Vogue

Camille Seaman is an award-winning photographer who captures striking photos of icebergs. In honor of our Arctic Photo Contest, we’ve tapped her to share a few of her photos and comment on her work.

The number of photographers producing work in the polar regions has noticeably increased over recent years: Paul Taggart, Sebastian Copeland, Lim Young Kyun, Daniel Beltra, Kim Høltermand, George Steinmetz and Andrea Gjestvang to name a few. As photographer Camille Seaman points out, “Ice is hot as a [photographic] media subject” due to the news coverage of climate change.

Seaman, however, was not initially attached to an environmental cause.

“When I started going [to the poles] they were not in the media the way they are today,” she says.

From her trips, Camille Seaman has produced two major portfolios. The Last Iceberg (images 1-5) presents icebergs as old men of the sea, adrift and slowly “heading to their end.” Seaman thinks of the images of icebergs as she does portraits of individuals, much like family photos of ancestors. Dark Ice (images 6-8) is a study of icebergs’ movements and behaviors; the way they space themselves out. “It’s more about iceberg-mood,” says Seaman via e-mail.

The history and romanticism of “formidable and difficult to reach” places drew Seaman to the poles as a photographic subject. That her photos contain an environmental message seems to be incidental.

“I tend to shy away from labels,” she says, “I photograph landscapes but I am not a landscape photographer; there are animals in some of my images but I am not a wildlife-photographer. I am an artist who uses a camera as my tool of choice to communicate ideas that I hold important to think about, and as a tool to document my curiosity about my experience on Earth. Does that make me an environmentalist?”

Never before in human history have polar regions been – with such minimum effort and discomfort – so accessible. “Ships carry tens of thousands of visitors to Antarctica each year as tourists. The price to get there, though high for some, is now affordable,” says Seaman.

For Seaman, the price quickly went from affordable to lucrative. Her first visit on a tiny Norwegian icebreaker was repeated when she was asked to be the ship’s photographer.

“As humans we make an impact no matter where we go,” says Seaman. “The ships I travel on seek to do it in as environmentally conscience way, [raising] awareness among our tourist passengers so as not just to make a buck in taking people there but to create ambassadors that will return home, spread the word, respect these delicate regions, and protect them rather than exploit them. I cannot say this is the aim of all ships that go to these regions.”